Here’s an update on childhood bereavement support in Scotland.
5 out of every 100 children in the UK lose a parent by the time they reach 16. That’s around 4,600 children in Scotland who will experience a parent’s death every year.
For the last week, I’ve been reflecting on a question Professor Allan Kellehear raised about how long grief lasts. He posed this question during his keynote speech on Creating Compassionate Cities at the Everyday Compassion conference in Glasgow. He answered his own question. “Grief doesn’t last 6 weeks or 6 years. It lasts forever.”
If you’d like to write a tribute after a death but don’t feel able, here’s how to do it – inspired by a participant in our recent Absent Friends Supper. Writing a tribute is a lovely way of remembering someone who mattered. It lets us get to the essence them by recalling some of their […]
This Thursday, 9 November, I’m hosting an Absent Friends Supper at Kinning Park Complex. It’s free to attend and starts at 6pm.
To Absent Friends is an annual Scotland-wide festival promoted by our friends at Good Life Good Death Good Grief.
This week we’re grateful to Jennifer Levenson for sharing At the End – her way of saying goodbye to a parent. She wrote this poem for her dad’s funeral in 2008 and has been glad to let others use and adapt them since then. She offers this poem to you, if it’s helpful.
This week, we look at the challenge of facing death and letting go, thanks to Evelyn Temple who shares her thoughtful, poignant story of her dad’s end of life wish – Just Let Me Go. Evelyn shares: February 25 2017 marked ten years since my Dad died. My Dad – strong, humble, constant, hardworking. He was my rock […]
This week John Birrell shares news of an important event in November that will focus on society and grief.
Friend of Fling, Barry Ward, this week shares news of Remembering Christine – the book he has written in tribute to his wife Christine who died last year.
Last week Jackie Kay, our wonderful Scots Makar – Scotland’s poet laureate – was one of the guest editors on Woman’s Hour and chose as one of her many fascinating topics, ‘complicated grief’.
At the end of Dying Matters Awareness Week 2016 here are some thoughts about having conversations about death with children.
Happy new you! Yep. That’s what Final Fling is all about. Making life the best it can be, whatever is going on for you.
So if you’re in New Year’s Resolution mode, new year, new start, new you, how about doing a wee bit of thinking, feeling, reflecting and planning that might set you off on the right foot for the year and even take a load off.
If you need help, coping with loss at Christmas, we think you might like a look at tips from The Compassionate Friends. This group has come together through common experience – the loss of a son or daughter. The tips, we think, will be of general help to anyone dealing with loss.
There’s no hierarchy in pain when it comes to death, but there’s no denying, losing a child as a baby is a new parent’s nightmare. This week, Matt Cunninham shares his experience of losing his daughter Molly.
We lost a friend suddenly. A friend of a crowd of us. None of us really knew her family – as often happens.
A year on from her funeral, I wanted to post a wee tribute on Final Fling.
Why? I wondered.
I think it’s like the importance of the ‘say their names’ campaign run by The Compassionate Friends who encourage families who have lost a son or daughter to say the names and tell the stories of our loved and lost.
This week we bring you advice on supporting a child after bereavement from our friends at Winston’s Wish. Each year, Winston’s Wish supports over 30,000 bereaved children and young people after the death of their mum, dad, brother or sister, so that they can face the future with confidence and hope.
There’s been an interesting run of comments in The Guardian this week connected to a feature asking questions about coping with the loss of a child. The article features an interview with Denise Turner, who lost her son Joe to cot death aged 19 months. That was 9 years ago. Denise now lectures at Sussex University and for her […]
How do you go on living after the sudden death of your partner? Caroline Brown generously shares her recent personal experience and shows us one way of coping.
Death and loss It’s a sad truth, but the fact is we’re all living and we’re all dying. As difficult as it may be to accept, death is an inevitable part of life. At Final Fling we don’t waste time dwelling on the negative of this, instead we see death as the counterpoint that makes […]
If you’re looking for the support of a counsellor or life coach, we can help. A counsellor or life coach offer slightly different therapeutic approaches to help support you in challenging times…
Final Fling is delighted to have Grief Specialist, Kristie West on our side. One of the many interesting topics Kristie explores in her therapeutic work with clients as a grief specialist is whether or not we feel it’s important to hold onto pain as a way of honouring the memory of the people we’ve lost…